Rugby parkrun

Introduction / List of reviews

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Date of Visit

28 May 2022

Number of runners

147

Event Number

207

Visit Number

1

Results

https://www.parkrun.org.uk/rugby/results/207/

parkrun Link

https://www.parkrun.org.uk/rugby/

Facebook Page

https://www.facebook.com/rugbyparkrun

The have a very cool pinned post with a graphic showing what volunteers they need to go ahead. It’s worth checking out!

Strava Segment

https://www.strava.com/segments/14694141

Weather

Lovely today. Blue skies and white fluffy clouds. Warm but not enough to really impact on your run.

Getting There

Whinfield Park is walkable from the town centre and the railway station. Also means it’s reachable by bus with the town being so close. Straightforward to reach by car and is less than 10 minutes from M6 junction 2.

Meeting point is easy enough to find as it’s right in the middle of the field next to Butlin Road.

Facilities

Plenty of free parking at the park itself at the end of Butlin road and you could also park in town and walk. They do ask on the Facebook page not to park on Butlin road and annoy the residents!

No toilets on site unfortunately. You could likely find something in the town centre or at the train station but would need to factor that into your timings if you’re coming from further afield.

Post run food and drink is at The Canal Lounge at Bridge 66 which is half mile up the road. We weren’t able to partake this week as we were on a time limit but it lovely on the website.

Briefings and Volunteers

Loads of volunteers and it does kind of need them as the course has points where people need to be directed. First timer briefing spotted I was trying to sign for Bryony and stop at certain points so I could get caught up and checked I’d got everything which was much appreciated. Only small thing that we’d have changed was that he didn’t have volunteer vest on or anything to indicate he the person doing the first timer briefing so if Bryony had been on her own it could have given her a problem finding out about the course.

Very lively main briefing with some crowd interaction as we’d got tourists from France and New Zealand!

Start line and finish funnel

Nice wide start line which I always like to see as it starts on the grass in the middle of one of the stretches of grass. Finish funnel was in the corner of the other field and had a nice bit of shade nearby which was needed. It was also right next to the car park which was very helpful.

Course

The description on the website, the briefing and having loads of cones made it look more complicated that it actually was. It’s basically two laps around the park but the park is kind of split in two. First bit is a run around the field where you start then it goes off into a bit of an off road section, climb up a hill and round the back of the second larger field and you do it again.

Was a much prettier route than I was expecting with a bit of everything with using normal paths, grass and gravel roads that a flat, with sections that go down and up hill! There is a rather large hill at the further point away from the start and while it’s not horrendously steep it is pretty long. It was fine today but I can imagine this is an entirely different challenge in the winter when it’s wet and muddy.

It’s not really a PB course. There is a lot of that’s flat and you can pick up speed on the downhill sections but the hill isn’t something you’re going to fly up and you have to do it twice!

Shoes

Depends on the time of year! Even with all the grass roads shoes are fine if it’s dry like it was today. If we come back in the winter though I’ll absoultely be bring trail shoes as you’ll need them.

Short or Long? (based on our watches and checking out other Strava profiles)

Just about right. Both Bryony and I had it as 3.08 on our watches and most other people I looked at it had it between 3.06 and 3.1.

Andy Stats

parkrun number:

53

Tourist event number:

25 (quarter Cowell for those following the challenges!)

Official time:

20:17

Position:  

7 ( 67.79% age grade)

Bryony Stats

parkrun number:

42

Tourist event number:

19

Official time:

34:46

Position

129 (44.01% age grade) 36th Female

How did it go?

Pretty well overall. I’ve been struggling with illness and injury the last couple of weeks so I had no heroics planned. The fact I was able to run the time I did today I’m chalking down as a win. I did end up trading places with one particular person few times so had a little bit of a battle on which kept it interesting. I thought I’d pulled away from him but he reeled me right on the last bend but I managed to find a bit of spurt to get past him on the finishing straight. All good fun.

Bryony had a fairly comfortable run and said she probably could have dug a bit deeper and was happy to get around without too much issue. Thinks she’s better at short steep hills rather than long ones. (She still doesn’t like running on grass).

I even got to meet Anna from the Running Channel too! Rugby is her home parkrun and we’d only been watching her latest video about a trail marathon on the Isle of Mull last night so we had a quick chat about that. She was very nice!

Return Visit Likely?

Probably. This has been on the list of ones to do for a while as it’s pretty easy to get to from our house but the course description on the website and the lack of loos was a bit off putting. Now I’ve done the course I’d certainly like another crack at it. It’s a really lovely park and a beautiful route so that’s a big draw too.

Pictures and that.